


Smitten

by Bagheera



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Falling In Love, M/M, Manipulation, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik thinks he can use Charles' crush on him as a tactical advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smitten

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2011 as a kinkmeme response.

It took Erik about three hours after meeting him to realize that Charles Xavier was hopelessly in love with him. That it took so long had a number of reasons: first of all Erik was shocked from nearly drowning and learning that there was a whole species of people like him, and then he was distracted by the fact that Xavier was working with the CIA. He instinctively distrusted all government agencies, not least because the Mossad was probably still looking for him - he had got some of his training and leads on the whereabouts of nazi criminals who had gone underground from them before going AWOL, and secret agencies didn't take kindly to men who knew far too much about them. But at least the Mossad didn't know about Erik's mutant powers, whereas the CIA, thanks to Charles Xavier, was perfectly aware of them.

The Americans let him get the stash of money and dry clothes he had hid near the pier before going after Shaw, but Xavier never took an eye off him. The way he stared with an absolutely smitten little smile while Erik changed should have been a clue - but at the time Erik was so much on edge that he simply took it as Xavier watching him so he couldn't run from the CIA.

They shared a jeep on the way to the landing strip, and in the plane, Xavier sat next to him, and kept saying things like, "You must be hungry, there, bring the man a sandwich, will you?" to the flight attendant even though Erik hadn't said a word about being hungry. Once he saw the food - white American bread, neatly cut into triangles, cheese and lettuce - he realized that he hadn't eaten since he'd stepped off the plane, more than a day ago. 

He also hadn't slept, but Erik had no intention of going to sleep on a CIA plane. Xavier seemed to catch his thought instantly, and leaned close, a hand on Erik's shoulder, to say softly, "No harm will come to you, my friend, not while I'm here."

His touch lingered too long, his face hovered too close. It was then that Erik finally realized how it was. He wondered, briefly, if Xavier was reading his mind, and knew that Erik knew, but Xavier gave no sign of surprise or embarrassment. Erik's first impulse was to call him on it, to tell him to keep his hands to himself, that he wasn't interested - any of the things he might have said to a man with the temerity to make a pass at him in public. But the fact that the plane was swarming with government agents, and Xavier's sister and the female agent were sitting only two seats to Xavier's left kept him quiet. 

It wasn't as if he was personally bothered by Xavier's proclivities - Erik was self-aware enough to know that his own sexuality was permanently disturbed. He had never felt a normal, healthy attraction to women the way other men seemed to. Xavier's sister, for example, was a nice-looking girl, but she'd left him completely cold until the brief moment at the landing strip when she'd shown him her natural blue form. Then, and not just because she was naked, he'd experienced a sharp, sudden spike of interest that would probably have been the same had she been a young man. It had been a feeling so alien to him that at first he hardly knew what it was. But she wasn't the only one like him, there were others out there, strange and wonderful like her, there was another just like him, sitting so close Erik could feel his warmth. 

Xavier himself was attractive in a soft, cultured way. Particularly his voice (which was all that Erik had known of him for the first few frantic moments of their acquaintance, and which had left its echoes like footprints in his mind) and the magnetic confidence he radiated with every glance and smile made an impression and perhaps, if Erik had felt safe, if they'd met somewhere in a bar after a few drinks and Xavier had shown his interest, Erik would have taken him up on it. A quick release to clear his mind, a taste of something else, something he had no use for in the long run...

This wasn't a bar. It wasn't even a chance meeting. But Xavier's attraction to him was a tactical advantage and it occurred to him fairly quickly that it might be useful. Xavier was the only person in this whole operation who could match his powers, and he could probably tell that Erik had no interest in working for the CIA. But so far, he seemed to be too smitten with him to notice anything was wrong, and Erik could use that if he played his cards right.

He put on the smile that had, more than once, helped him get information out of bored secretaries and waitresses, and said, "You've told me a lot about your research, but what about you? How long have you been working for the CIA?"

"I'm not working for them at all," Xavier said, returning the smile in a much more intimate way. Did he do this with all attractive strangers he met? If so, Erik wondered how often it got him in trouble. "I'm merely... consulting for them. They want to stop Shaw, and so do I."

Erik had expected something different - while talking about science, Xavier had sounded much more self-congratulary. Now he sounded almost modest. Honest, too. Maybe he was just what he seemed? A young idealist, one of those Americans who were basically children for all that they knew about life. It was possible that he thought he could trust the CIA.

"We're all on the same side here," Xavier went on in an encouraging tone. "Although I must confess to an ulterior motive in all this."

Was he actually going to show his hand? "Do you?" Erik asked, trying to sound intrigued rather than wary.

"There are other mutants out there," Xavier said. "Perhaps many, many more than I thought. And I want to know everything about them. I am thinking that, perhaps, one day there might be a world in which no child needs to grow up afraid or confused by what they are. A world where mutants are no longer isolated freaks of nature, but part of something larger, a community, a nation of mutants, if you want -"

Erik forced himself to stop looking into Xavier's eyes. His enthusiasm was hypnotic, the picture he painted at once tempting and frightening. To be part of something again, to be able to build something rather than destroy... until tonight, it had seemed like an impossibility, and now here was Charles Xavier, laying it out like a feast.

Xavier was still speaking, and Erik started to wonder if he had imagined the crush, if perhaps Xavier threw himself at every new mutant with this kind of rapt enthusiasm, if the brightness in his gaze was a constant, not reserved for Erik at all. He felt, the most irrational of things, a stab of disappointment, followed by a dull lack of surprise - it was highly unlikely, after all, that a man should fall in love with him right after getting a glimpse of his mind.

*

But by the time they got to the research facility, and they met Hank McCoy, Erik could tell that he’d only been partly right. Yes, Xavier was enthusiastic about every mutant, but no, it wasn’t at all the same way he treated Erik. He seemed to delight in Hank and Hank’s abilities like a child with a new toy, but that was all. There was none of the intensity in his voice, none of the urgency with which he’d spoken to Erik all the way on the plane, as if everything they said to each other was of gravest importance to him.

Erik couldn’t understand why - the only explanation was that Xavier was a fool, that he saw but didn't really see. If he did, then he wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone like Erik. If he weren’t willfully blind, he’d know that Erik intended to leave as soon as he got a lead on Shaw.

Several hours later, he once more had to readjust his opinion of Charles Xavier when he found him lurking at the exit, ready to stop him leaving. His body sang with adrenaline at the threat, and he almost looked forward to it, matching his magnetism against Xavier's telepathy, mind against mind, no holds barred - 

“I could,” Xavier said, “but I won’t.”

Erik remained frozen on the spot until Xavier had left. Idealistic, but not blind. In love, but unselfishly enough to let go. Trusting, but not so trusting that he didn’t prefer a measure of control.

A man entirely unlike Erik, and yet more alike him than ninety-nine per cent of the people on this planet. A man who had seen everything, who knew all the things Erik would never, ever put into words. A man who could surprise him, and Erik hadn’t been surprised for more than a decade. He thought he’d seen it all. He thought that his story only lacked an ending: death or revenge. But Charles Xavier was dangling something else before him: a beginning.

Instead of leaving, Erik sat down on the steps and buried his face in his hands and tried to come to terms with the fact that there was something besides revenge and he didn’t know if he dared to want it. At some point during the night, he went back into the building. 

*

He was calmer in the morning, rested and rational again. By the time he had his coffee, he was thinking in clear facts again.

Fact: he would kill Shaw and if it took the rest of his natural life. And if it killed him.

Fact: there were thousands, maybe millions of people like him out there. People that were about to be delivered into the hands of governments, humans, men with orders. People like Charles Xavier, who trusted when they shouldn’t trust. He couldn’t walk away from these people. He had the power to protect them, this time.

And he would, even if it killed him.

It felt... not as if he was part of something larger, but as if he himself had grown into something infinitely larger than he had been the night before. The crushing weight on his shoulders had doubled, but now it was the future as well as the past, and it was so much lighter to bear.

He walked into the office where Xavier was negotiating the future of their kind as a man with a plan. Xavier was clearly delighted to see him still there, his whole face brightening in an instant, his smile as strong as an embrace.

Erik gave him a long look, then said, “If a new species is being discovered, then it should be its own kind. Charles and I find the mutants, no suits.” He said it very deliberately - Charles and I. The first time he had used Xavier’s first name, the first time he had spoken of them as a unit, a species, a pair of brothers. If Charles could tempt him with a number larger than one, then so could he.

And it worked. It worked beautifully. Charles, who had probably never had a distrustful thought in his life, agreed with his plan, simply because of those three words: Charles and I.

It was a ruthless thing to do, a promise that maybe he’d have to follow up on, but to Erik, the end had always justified the means. 

*

“How would you like a job where you get to keep your clothes on?” Charles asked the girl with the wings, and she dropped to the floor, folded her wings back and said, “I’ll go get my stuff, I’ll be back in half an hour! Don’t leave.”

“Well, that was easy,” Erik commented when she’d left.

“Was it?” Charles asked, giving him a meaningful look. “There’s nothing more powerful than finding out you aren’t alone.”

They were still stretched out on the bed, and it seemed so much closer now that they were alone in the room and Charles was looking at him like that, clearly with no intention of getting up.

Erik thought about kissing him. He wouldn’t mind, not at the moment. He’d drunk enough to give him a warm, buzzing feeling, and he’d been watching scantily clad dancers all night. It would bind Charles further to him, make sure they’d never betray each other. Without looking away from him, Erik made the red velvet curtains slide shut.

Charles looked down, his lashes dipping as he smiled crookedly. “Erik,” he said, “I’m well aware what you’re thinking. I have been for quite a while.”

The warm buzz vanished in an instant. Erik froze, then moved to get up, but before he could to so, Charles touched his arm. It was a light touch, with no force behind it, but Charles's fingertips were on his bare wrist and their presence was electric. 

"You know I've been manipulating you?" Erik asked angrily.

Charles looked down, his lashes dipping over a crooked smile. "I'm not very easily manipulated," he said, almost apologetic, as if it were his fault. 

Erik only grew angrier. "Then why did you go along with it?"

"Because I hope that eventually you'll realize that there's no need to manipulate me." He looked up again, and their faces were very close, and Charles' eyes impossibly bright and intense and steady, forcing him to hold the gaze, "I want you to know, my friend, that I agreed to your plan because I think you're right."

"About humans?"

"About the responsibility we, as mutants, have for our people. You and I especially. Believe me, Erik, I may be a little bit attracted to you, but my judgement is not so crowded that I can't see that you and I, we could move the world if we worked together."

Erik stared at him. Charles Xavier was the most infuriating, unpredictable, sly, arrogant little twit he had ever met, the most ridiculous dreamer, with that perfectly earnest gaze and that hand on Erik's wrist as if he could touch anything without getting burnt, and that snake charmer's voice spinning dreams and every fibre of his being screaming 'it's all here for the taking', the most wanton thing in the whole club and the most chaste - he was amazing, the most amazing man Erik had ever met, and he was going to break him and Erik was going to let him - 

"A little bit attracted," Erik huffed, and kissed him. 

Charles melted into the kiss with a delighted, entirely unsurprised little noise. They kissed until Erik moved his head to growl against Charles' ear, "I think I could have you right here and now if I wanted to."

Charles gasped against his neck, moving closer, half on top of him, "You'd have to be quick."

"Half an hour, she said," Erik replied, and Charles laughed breathlessly. 

*

When Angel returned with a heavy bag slung over her shoulder and wearing a coat, they had only barely just managed to get dressed again, although there could be no talk of being presentable. Erik didn't know how he looked, but Charles looked like a man who had just happily been fucked into the matress. There were no stains on the cover, but one of the red velvet pillows bore an obvious bite mark from where Charles had tried to stifle a shout. 

"I knew it," Angel said after taking one look at them. 

Erik tensed, ready to face whatever abuse she could come up with (or to fend off the club security, should she call it) but she just asked, "So, are we going, or what?"

It was then that it really settled in. All the old barriers no longer mattered. They were mutants, the girl was a mutant, from now on it was them against the rest of the world, and the past was the past and would be dead when Shaw was dead and he and Charles would create a future without hatred, without fear. 

Erik looked at Charles and found him already meeting his gaze, his brilliant smile perfectly mirroring Erik's own.


End file.
